The benefit cap is a cynical attack on the poorest families (Editorial, 17 July), particularly those in London who face rents twice as high as the rest of the UK. It is misleading for Iain Duncan Smith to suggest there is plenty of cheap accommodation available for families with children. The cap was implemented in four London boroughs in April and using freedom of information requests, I have found that in the first two months of this trial Enfield council used hardship funds to move 15 families with 46 children out of greater London.

The mayor of London has repeatedly promised that this wouldn't happen. But in a city where rents are rising fast, where pay for many is flat, and where jobs that come close to covering living costs are few and far between, it is inevitable that more children will have to leave their schools, and that families will be forced to move away from their networks of support. Under this cap, if you lose your job or are working fewer than 16 hours, you risk losing your home.

Instead of imposing cuts in the social security net, the government should be regulating to stabilise private sector rents and to ensure secure tenancies as well as investing properly in new social housing. Such policies would benefit every tenant in every corner of the UK.Darren JohnsonGreen party, London Assembly

• Phillip Inman is right in that we need much more housebuilding to bring down prices so that more people can buy their own homes (Lack of housing, not credit, is root of property problem, 15 July). Another problem is the growth of the buy-to-let industry. We need some private rental properties, but the balance has gone too far in that direction, as landlords are able to outbid potential first-time buyers, and then rent the properties to the people they outbid. In effect, they are able to create their own demand.

Building societies should take a clear moral position on this and refuse to issue any more buy-to-let mortgages, and the government should stop treating mortgage interest as an expense to reduce landlords' tax bills. The extra tax revenue from this could perhaps be given to housing associations to build more social housing.Richard MountfordTonbridge, Kent

• I read Nick Herbert's article (This wink to developers won't fix the housing crisis, 11 July) and was surprisingly impressed by his analysis even though it was written by a Conservative MP from a southern perspective. However, on the same day Phillip Inman's article highlighted how the lack of social housing is pushing up rents and house prices and the only solution to our domestic property crisis is to build more public housing on publicly owned land.

Can we find some way of getting this valid point over to our decision-makers before we become a nation shackled to higher rents and huge mortgages that adversely affect the quality of life of a huge proportion of our population?Alan BriersYork

• Phillip Inman may well be right about the fear of a house price bubble but, being cynical, I suspect George Osborne has in the back of his mind the creation of a feel-good factor in time for the 2015 general election.Alistair GregoryCarnforth, Lancashire